A Grumpy Fan's Take - Carolina game

[MikefromOH]

Seattle?

Not when you're winning... The gameplan drove me up a wall too

Seattle, SF...whatever.

the fact that he asked him to do that was proof he doesn't have the mindframe to think about who is playing and what game plan to call.

Gruden did this as well. The not adjusting is a freaking killer to me.

 

[Primus Porcus]

Seattle, SF...whatever.

the fact that he asked him to do that was proof he doesn't have the mindframe to think about who is playing and what game plan to call.

Gruden did this as well. The not adjusting is a freaking killer to me.

I agree completely. If you dont have confidence in your QB why put it in his hands that many times?

 

[Boone]

I think as fans, we oversimplify. The OC and his coaches are looking at every detail of the defense and probably have a gameplan set up to attack what they perceive are the D's most vulnerable areas. Every OC in the league is doing this in preparation for every game. But we all know the perfect plan lasts about as long as it takes until the bullets start flying. Injuries happen. Players you thought could be exploited have the game of their life. Your QB doesn't execute the play you called, or audibles to one that doesn't pan out. Penalties rob you of critical yards. There are just 1000 things that can 'change the plan'.

I'm not suggesting that we, as fans, don't make a valid and correct observation when we say things like 'they gave up on the run'. We saw it. They did. I'm just suggesting it's a little more complicated than that, and I feel confident if we were in the room, or had access to Scott Turner and his coaches, we'd have a more nuanced view of 'what happened'.

There's a big difference critiquing what happened once we know whether it was successful or not, and having 30 seconds to make that next call.

 

[Boone]

I agree completely. If you dont have confidence in your QB why put it in his hands that many times?

If you don't have confidence in your QB, you should never put him under center unless there literally is no other choice. I said this before the game, and unfortunately we all saw what happens when ignore your gut and go with a guy you don't trust.

 

[Primus Porcus]

If you don't have confidence in your QB, you should never put him under center unless there literally is no other choice. I said this before the game, and unfortunately we all saw what happens when ignore your gut and go with a guy you don't trust.

no argument from this side of the keyboard

As last week went on, you swayed me quite a bit, I should have been more vocal on here but I wanted to defer to Rivera's judgment since he's forgotten more about football than I will likely ever know. I threw it up on Twitter your exact argument that the gap between Haskins and Montez / Heinicke quite possibly is not that big of a gap. I wanted to believe Haskins had it in him but clearly he does not when you're on the same plane as a rookie and a guy who has barely had a cup of coffee in the NFL>

 

[Boone]

Well - to be fair. We know what Haskins brought to that game. Nothing. Heinicke looked absolutely terrific at the end there, but we don't know how he'd have fared had he started and had the whole game. I believe we win that game by a couple TDs. But we will never know for sure.

 

[MikefromOH]

I still think in that drive that Carolina played "prevent" and zone which opened up the middle. All the passes went to the middle. they gave up the middle of the field due to time and no need to press.

 

[Boone]

There's definitely a reason why you see this a lot. Starter struggles all game, and then gets subbed in for by player X who proceeds to march the team down the field. I mean, it's almost a predictable thing, right?

So it's dangerous to draw a lot of conclusions from a drive or two late by a sub in desperation mode.

What I liked about what I saw in Heinicke... he showed a sense of urgency, a surprising calm and seeming comfortability with what was being called. He looked fluid and athletic and completed his passes accurately (believe he was a 67-68% completion passer in college). He used his feet well when the pass wasn't there. He knows how to slide His arm looked adequate to me. He's not going to knock any walls down with his throws but certainly can get the ball downfield (and he did so accurately.

Can he do it for a game? For stretches of games? For a season? Who knows...

 

[MikefromOH]

He had a great touch on the ball, I will say that for Taylor.

 

[Knightingale]

The problem with the rule that once the whistle blows the play is dead and nothing that happens after that is relevant is simple. Sometimes the whistle blowing the play dead is itself, an error, and one that can not then be corrected. The refs should be able to review all plays before and after the whistle, and determine what the call should be. That was one of the worst quick whistles I have ever seen, and of course it was on a crucial turnover play.

Did the Ref's not review that play anyway? I thought all potential turnovers were auto-reviewed by the booth? (Googling it says this: -- 2012 - All turnovers will be reviewed from the booth with no coaches' challenges needed and overtime periods in the regular season will use the same scoring rules as the postseason after NFL owners voted to approve those proposals Wednesday.) I could have sworn (but would need to re-watch) that there was a pause in the play there and they the ref came back and said that the ruling on the field was confirmed. I remember thinking at the time that was why Ron never challenged, because the Ref's had already taken a look and made their decision.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

Did the Ref's not review that play anyway? I thought all potential turnovers were auto-reviewed by the booth? (Googling it says this: -- 2012 - All turnovers will be reviewed from the booth with no coaches' challenges needed and overtime periods in the regular season will use the same scoring rules as the postseason after NFL owners voted to approve those proposals Wednesday.) I could have sworn (but would need to re-watch) that there was a pause in the play there and they the ref came back and said that the ruling on the field was confirmed. I remember thinking at the time that was why Ron never challenged, because the Ref's had already taken a look and made their decision.

Curl forced an apparent fumble later in the game but the Panthers were bailed out by a quick whistle.

 

[Knightingale]

Curl forced an apparent fumble later in the game but the Panthers were bailed out by a quick whistle.

Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. I could have sworn they reviewed it. Wasn't that the one Reaves ran all the way to the endzone, before they did the review and confirmed the on the field ruling (forward progress had stopped etc).

 

[Primus Porcus]

Did the Ref's not review that play anyway? I thought all potential turnovers were auto-reviewed by the booth? (Googling it says this: -- 2012 - All turnovers will be reviewed from the booth with no coaches' challenges needed and overtime periods in the regular season will use the same scoring rules as the postseason after NFL owners voted to approve those proposals Wednesday.) I could have sworn (but would need to re-watch) that there was a pause in the play there and they the ref came back and said that the ruling on the field was confirmed. I remember thinking at the time that was why Ron never challenged, because the Ref's had already taken a look and made their decision.

Curl forced an apparent fumble later in the game but the Panthers were bailed out by a quick whistle.

I believe you're both talking about the same play.

Curl's forced fumble was not reviewed because it was deemed that the play was blown dead due to his forward progress being stopped... Forward progress is not reviewable.. the fumble play was not reviewed because of that fact. Once the whistle is blown the opposing team can deem that they 'stopped playing' because of the whistle so they did not have proper opportunity to make a play.

At the end of the day, the whistle should not have been blown. On the Dwayne Haskins fumble, they allowed the play to continue and play out, then going back to review (and still getting it wrong imho, but that's another argument). Had they blown the play dead as quickly with the Haskins play...

 

[Primus Porcus]

Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. I could have sworn they reviewed it. Wasn't that the one Reaves ran all the way to the endzone, before they did the review and confirmed the on the field ruling (forward progress had stopped etc).

the confirmed one was the Haskins fumble if i'm not mistaken.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

the confirmed one was the Haskins fumble if i'm not mistaken.

That they confirmed the Haskins fumble instead of stands pretty much gave me a huge warning that the ref were going to screw us over.

And Gene Stoogeatore was backing them in the both. Must have had money on the game or the League really didn't want meaningless NFC East games Week 17.

Sims and Haskins screwing up meant they didn't need to do too much but the fix was definitely in.

 

[Knightingale]

This whole throwing the ball malarky... I think that rather than being all bad play calling, it's a combination of two things.

Firstly, us falling into big deficits that don't allow us clock time.
Look at that game yesterday for the first half... Our D was struggling at times to stop them driving up and down the field. They were kicking our ass on ToP with long drawn out drives. Once we were three scores down we needed to a) score fast and b) stop the clock. Passing does that. You either generally get big chunks of yardage, or stop the clock on an incompletion. We needed that time desperately. (What did my noggin in on this one, was the short dump offs behind the LoS which seemed destined to complete for losses!)

The other thing I thought, was that Haskins had shown in the past that he can get into a rhythmn if you get him to throw short and often. I wondered if they were trying desperately to get him into one of those grooves where he has moved the ball in the past.

It quickly became clear he just didn't have it though, and I do think they were late going to Heineke.

I know it's a short sample size, but he really impressed me. It was clear he knew what the plays were (he's played in this system before) and clear he knew the right decisions to make. There's a lot of talk about how we lack weapons, and we do. But It was also clear in those last 9 mins that Haskins was incapable of consistently taking advantage of the weapons we had. I feel WAY more confident going into this weekends game knowing that we have Smith or Heineke behind centre.

As for Ron... I know I've just said he was late yanking Haskins, and maybe he should have released Dwayne a week earlier, but he does make pretty fast decisive moves when the time comes. The way he dealt with Trent and now releasing Dwayne... He knows what he wants and he just does it. If this was the last regime under Bruce Allen, this situation would have dragged and dragged... I honestly think he'd have been gone last week if he hadn't thought he needed Haskins for this game (and word on the street was that some staff and players had to talk him out of releasing him after the Seattle game and FaceMaskGate). I also wonder if there was some behind the scenes stuff with Snyder that had to get ironed out before it could happen. I get the feeling he made his mind up post Seattle and it just took a week to grease the wheels so to speak.